Advice
by Aieika
Summary: For Zutara week: Crossover. Zuko enters a tea shop to get some very good advice from someone he did not expect. Avatar/HP x-over


I own nothing. Wrote for zutara week, theme: crossover

**Advice**

It had been a long day. All Zuko wanted to do was sit down at his uncle's tea shop and to no longer exist. All day without end it was: "Lord Zuko, you are needed at a peace meeting." "Fire Lord Zuko! The reconstruction project! Your opinion?" and even "My Lord! Should the lining on the table cloth be red or gold for tomorrows feast?"

It had happened all day and Zuko was quiet exhausted. He owed Katara too. She stepped in on the party decorating and gave Zuko just enough time to escape. He would have to pay her back somehow…

"Mind if I sit here?"

Zuko looked up. He was wearing some of the common green clothing he had for when he went out in public and did not want to be recognized. The man that stood there wore all black. He seemed like he hardly wanted to deal with priority, but as Zuko looked around the shop, he noticed almost every other seat was full and he was sitting at the single least crowded table.

"By all means." Zuko really did not want to share his seating with anyone either. Except perhaps Katara. Katara was always welcome to be with him… even if the courting had not been going completely as planned.

As the man sat down, zuko noticed that he was a traveler. His clothing matched none of the styles he had ever seen, and his hair looked like it had not been washed for some time.

The man sat down and reclined in his chair. At first look he looked like a sharp and very bitter man. The man closed his eyes, and Zuko could see how weary the man was. His face was lined not with age, but with experience. The man had been through a lot. He was actually not all that old. His hair was not yet graying, and his body was in good condition, but he was skinny, and his sallow skin gave the impression of sickness. The man was worn, but not with time.

The man opened his eyes and Zuko could see the burden in them. His eyes were like coal. Dead coal. The man noticed that Zuko was staring at him. And his eyes sharpened and his mask was brought up so quickly, zuko thought he might of imagined the pain.

"What? Did no one ever tell you it is rude to stare?"

Zuko did not have response ready. He opened his mouth then closed it again. He did not know what he should say.

"So tell me," said the man. "Why are you here?"

"What?" again Zuko was completely taken aback.

"Why are you here?" he repeated.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because no one comes to a tea shop to actually drink the tea. People are either here to learn something about the person that they are sitting with, or for reflection, or to rest. What is your reason?"

The man sounded a bit like his uncle, only with a much stiffer and less kind way about him. The man did not look like he was the type for the touchy feely type of thing.

"Why do you care?" Zuko asked, regaining his gruff attitude.

"I don't. But if you are going to stare at me, you might as well tell me what it is you are doing here."

Why was he here? To talk? No hardly. Was it to rest? There were better places to avoid people. He supposed he may be hoping to be found. But by who? Not the various officials that always seemed to need to speak to him… no he wanted to see someone else… "Katara" he whispered, without meaning too.

"Katara, I take it, is a girl?"

"Crap," he muttered. He did not mean to tell this stranger something that he had not even fully admitted to himself.

The man smirked. _Great_ Zuko thought_ the last thing I need is some stranger knowing about my infatuation with the water bender._

"Let me give you a piece of advice," the man said leaning forward with something new in his eyes. "If she is worth it, don't blow it. If she is worth it… be the person that she needs, not the wanna-be you are not."

"Let me guess. Life experience?"

"Yes. I don't give advice very often, and I don't really care if you follow it or not. I, after all, have no way of knowing. I will never see you again after this little point in time. I became the person that I aspired to be. But that person was not who I actually was. My love for her overpowered any possibility I could ever truly be who I wanted to be. In all honesty, I just did not think that someone like me could be anything else. I thought myself a coward, and so I was one. I am still one. I live a dangerous life. I life that before, I would never have wanted… but that was before she was killed do to a stupid choice that I made. Not directly, but through a distinct chain of events. I am still a coward, but not because I am afraid to die… which may soon happen. I am afraid to live. I swore to be brave for her… I swore to live for her… I swore that her death would not go in vain."

He seemed to no longer really be speaking to Zuko, but to himself.

"Why are you telling _me_ this?" Zuko asked.

"Perhaps it is because I will never see you again. I have never told anyone this… except for a dying man that I once new. You might have use for my failures. I have already failed, and the lessons were learned to late. If she is worth living for, she is worth dying for. Don't forget that. Money, or power, or _honor_, don't matter anymore when it comes to her. She _is_ your honor. She is your integrity. Her worth is more than anything in the world. Don't forget that." Zuko thought about these words. Honor… he _was_ his honor…

"Zuko? What are you doing here?" Zuko's head shot up and saw none other than Katara smiling at him. "I would have thought you were going to try and get to some place that no one could find you."

The man stood up. "I think it is time that I take my leave."

Zuko also stood. "I never got your name."

"Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't, but it would make identifying you in my memory much easier then 'dark man with hooked nose and greasy shoulder length hair'"

"Hn. I suppose. Severus Snape."

"Zuko."

"Good day… to the both of you." The stranger turned on his heel, and left.

"What was that about?" asked Katara.

"Oh… just a wise man telling a stupid young man a piece of advice."

"Was it good advice. I like to think so… though it may have been for his own benefit as opposed to my own…"

"What?"

"It doesn't really matter. I will never see him again."

And Zuko and Katara never did. Snape returned to his own world after his errand had been complete, and died a few months later in a war protecting the son of the woman he loved… so that her death would not be in vain.

For those that did not get it, the crossover was with Harry Potter.


End file.
